Slow Down, Gym Shoe!

Product Review: Shrinky Dinks I <3 You Cards!

Guess what, everyone... I've got a product review for you, and a giveaway! How does that make you feel?

If you grew up in the eighties, you probably remember making Shrinky Dinks. You used colored pencils to color small, clear sheets of paper with  pictures on them. Then, you (well, preferrably a grown-up!) put them in the oven, and they shrank into small, hard figures that you could play with! I remember I had a Cabbage Patch Kids set and a My Little Ponies kit. I have fond memories if Shrinky Dinks!
Well, the people at Creativity For Kids have taken Shrinky Dinks a step further and found a way for kids to use them to make creative greeting cards! They sent the kids and I a package of Shrinky Dinks I Heart You Cards to try out! 

I had signed us up for a Valentine's Day card exchange with one of our playgroups, so we were supposed to make eight cards to send out for that. I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to use the kit... we could make all of the cards we needed for our exchange, and the kids would each be able to make one or two to keep or give away!

Pufferfish didn't get into it that much. She's all about coloring on blank paper, and doesn't really understand the concept of coloring in some pictures. So she just made a few lines on her little papers, and scampered off. But Little Bear and Rafael really got into it!

Here is Little Bear working hard at coloring hers. 

Here, Rafael grins proudly after coloring in his! (He was excited about using the Kiss Me design to make a card for his mom!)

 

I remembered the shrinking part of the process being really long and complicated... but that must be because I was about six the last time I tried to make them! It really only takes about five minutes. Unfortunately, our oven doesn't have a light inside, so we couldn't watch them shrink! But here's how they turned out!

 

Next, the kids and I got busy making the cards. Each card had a hole cut out on the front, and we had to use the adhesive dots included to stick a shrinky dink onto each card. The kit also came with ribbons and sparkly paper to decorate the cards with. Here is a sample of one of the finished products!
 

I think they turned out very cute! The thing I like the most about this kit (and other products made by Creativity For Kids) is that they can inspire kids to do more. We used up the materials in the kit pretty quickly, but the ideas we got from the kit (like cutting out a shape on the cover of a greeting card and gluing something in the middle, or punching holes in a card and lacing a ribbon through it) can be easily used again and again with other projects that we do using things around the house. So it really does turn out to be a learning experience!

THE FINAL REVIEW

Positive Aspects: This kit provided a way for the kids to make very cute, unique, creative greeting cards. The cards could be used for any occasion, not just Valentine's Day! It taught the kids some new ideas that they could later use for other projects. And it involved multiple steps... coloring the shrinky dinks, making the shrinky dinks in the oven, and making the actual cards... so it took up a good amount of the dreaded after school time!

Negative Aspects: I really don't think there were any negative aspects. I think the kids would have liked it if the kit included more things to put on the cards, such as stickers or more sheets of the sparkly paper. However, I definitely don't have anything bad to say about this kit!

The Kid Who Liked It The Most: Little Bear! Pufferfish was really too young to enjoy it. (The kit is recommended for ages seven and up, anyway!) And Rafael will sit and work hard on one or two coloring projects, but then his attention span wears out. However, Little Bear was churning out greeting cards like a one girl card factory!

We Rate This Kit: A!!!

Now, for the moment you've been waiting for! You have a chance to win a Creativity For Kids craft kit for you and your children! If you win, you'll be able to pick any craft kit from the site! All you have to do is go to the Creativity For Kids site, browse around, and leave me a comment telling me about a product you think your kids would enjoy. TO make it a little more interesting, if you forward this post to someone, Twitter it, blog about it, share it on Facebook, etc, I'll give you an extra entry! (You get one extra entry for each time you share it.)

The giveaway ends on Valentine's Day... Saturday, February 14! On Sunday, I'll randomly pick a winner!

Good luck!!!

Flea Circus Game Review

A while back, R&R Games sent my crew a whole bunch of games to try out and review. One of them was a card game called Flea Circus! The game involves trying to collect as many audience members (little plastic dogs and cats) as possible, by putting down cards from your hand. Putting down any card allows you to take a certain number of audience members... but if you play your cards right, literally, you can actually take audience members from the other players, gaining more for yourself and causing your friends to have less!

Pufferfish was too young to play this game, but she enjoyed sitting at the table with us and playing with the little dog and cat figures. As for Rafael, Little Bear, and Sarah, it took them a little while to get the hang of the rules. They had some trouble remembering what cards did what. But once they figured it out, it was a lot of competitive fun! They enjoyed stealing audience members from one another, similar to the way kids enjoy causing each other to draw extra cards in Uno or sending each other back to Start in Sorry. The dining room was filled with the sounds of good-natured ribbing, cheering and booing!

The game also did not drag on too long... when the last of the dogs and cats have been taken, the game is over. It was short enough for Little Bear and Rafael to demand to play again two more times before their short attention spans started waning.

We played this game after school, and I've been trying to get Diana to let us incorporate it into Family Game Night, which is really Family Uno Night since Uno is the only game Diana will play! (LOL!) Its definitely a great one to pull out on rainy days or for after school fun!

THE FINAL REVIEW

Positive Aspects: It is a fun, quick card game that depends on a combination of skill and luck. The little plastic dogs and cats add a novel feeling to the game and give antsy kids something to play with while they wait for their turn! Being able to take audience members from others gives it a playfully competitive feeling and keeps everyone involved.

Negative Aspects: It took a while for us to learn which cards did what, and when. I had to keep the directions next to me as a "cheat sheet" so I could remind the kids what moves were possible.

The Kid Who Liked It The Most: Actually, both Little Bear and Rafael wanted to play this game again and again! Whoever won each previous game was the most enthusiastic about playing another round, of course!

We Rate This Game: A!!!

PlayToys Circus Playset Review AND GIVEAWAY!

The other day I wrote about PlanToys, and I mentioned that I would be reviewing the Circus Playset that they sent to Little Bear and Pufferfish. I pretty much expected that the kids would love it, because the folks at PlanToys let them choose from a iist of reviewable toys. So I definitely wasn't surprised that the girls, and even Rafael, were delighted by it!

Pufferfish was actually the first one to see it. It came on the perfect day,,, it was a cold, rainy day, I wasn't feeling well, and Pufferfish was being a Crankyfish. So when the FedEx guy dropped this off, I was like, "Look, Pufferfish, a surprise!"

When I opened the box, the wooden circus set looked like it would be hard to set up, because there were so many pieces. But it was actually just a matter of unfolding the big circus tent, which was already put together! This made things much easier, since I always have trouble putting together toys while an impatient two year old hops around the room behind me!

The only problem I had with the setup was the fact that the tent was so wrinkled from being in the package, it was hard to spread out. The tent stayed folded up even after I set it up, and it blocked the middle part from view. I solved this by using some shipping tape to stick the edges of the tent to the table, and this basically "trained" the tent to stay open!

I know the picture here is kind of hard to see, but the circus set includes lots of interactive little surprises. The people who come with the set have little arms sticking out of their torsos. These arms can be hooked onto some of the circus pieces to make them do tricks! Do you see the tightrope with the red ball hanging from it? A tiny person can be latched onto the red ball so that he can swing across the tight rope like a zipline! There's also a little block where you can hook on a little person and make him do flips!
But the part of the circus that all of the kids liked the most was the black box you see right outside of the circus tent. This box is an actual magic trick. You can make one of your little people, or one of the animals, disappear! When I did this magic trick for the kids, they were awed, and they spent half an hour trying to figure out how it worked! (Much like an actual magician's disappearing box, this box has a secret compartment in it. You put the person or animal into the back of the box, and show the audience that the person or animal cannot get out. Once you shut the box, you flip a latch that shuts a secret, mirrored door inside the box. When you open the box again, all the audience seems to see is the empty box! You can then shut the box again, flip the secret door back open, and show the audience that your person or animal has safely reappeared!)

 

THE FINAL REVIEW

Positive Aspects: This very cool playset gives kids lots of things to discover! They love playing with the iittle people and animals, making the people do tricks, and even learning a real magic trick! Kids can play with this alone, or together, and they get to use their imaginations! Plus, it is so cute, I don't even have to make the kids put it away when they're done playing with it. Since they've been playing with it a lot, I just leave it set up on the table in the play room. After I make them clean up their other toys, they can still play with this one while they wait for dinner time or bed time! It can also be used as part of the entire Plan City.

Negative Aspects: The only trouble I had was keeping the circus tent open when I first got it.

The kid who likes it the most: All three of the little kids! Little Bear, Rafael and Pufferfish all love playing with it!

We rate it: A+!

Okay, and now for your chance to win your own Circus Playset! All you have to do is go to the PlanToys website and check out their baby toys and other developmental toys. Leave me a comment telling me which toy in their catalog you think one of your children would enjoy.

I'm not gonna give you a million other ways to get extra entries, because I know you probably don't want to spend two hours entering this giveaway. But you do have one way to get an extra entry! You can become a Facebook fan of PlanToys. Leave me a separate comment letting me know you did this, and you'll get a second entry!

This contest will be open until next Sunday, October 25th! On the following Monday, I'll declare a winner! Good luck, everyone!

The people at PlanToys also offered to supply another Circus Playset to a blog reader for a giveaway!

Introducing Plan Toys!

I've always been fascinated with unique toy stores and toy companies. One reason is that, these days, everything is just so mass-produced and mass-marketed. Lets say it's your five-year-old cousin's birthday and you want to buy her a toy. If you go into any typical store, you'll have a hundred choices of Barbie dolls and princess costumes and talking stuffed animals and electronics and art kits... but no matter what you buy, there is a huge chance that your little niece either already has it, or will be getting it for her birthday from someone else as well. I'm always hoping to find something special, something that will stand out to the special kids in my life, something that they may even keep forever. I also try to find educational toys for kids. The best educational toys, of course, are ones that don't really feel educational to kids, and are just plain fun.

I found out about Plan Toys when I decided to start doing product reviews. They make completely environmentally-friendly toys made from pure rubberwood. The rubberwood trees they use are kept fertilizer-free for at least three years before they are cut down, to make sure the wood is especially pure and safe. They use E-Zero glue instead of regular wood glue, which is toxic. They paint and print on their toys with non-toxic, waterbased paints and soy ink, to make toys safer for children and also safer for the environment. ANd all of their toys are made with recycled or recyclable materials.

Plan Toys focuses a lot on making wooden toys. They make adorable wooden versions of some traditional toys. For instance, check out this wooden stacking ring, this noisy walk-n-roll toy, and these colorful lacing beads. They even have a wooden tricycle!

When I first saw the Plan Toys website, I really liked their Plan City line. This is a line of toys based on things you would find in a typical town or city. They have all sorts of vehicles, a train station, a railroad set, houses, a rescue station, trees and roads and traffic signs, and people. They even have a circus playset! The sets in the Plan City line have to be purchased individually, so a child can build her own city as she goes along, collecting new ones at every birthday and holiday!

The people at Plan Toys were kind enough to let Little Bear and Pufferfish choose a toy to be sent to them. They chose the Circus play set! It actually came in the mail today, so the kids and I are going to review it for you within the next few days.

Plan Toys has also offered to supply another Circus play set to someone else, if I host a giveaway on my blog. Of course I took them up on that! So, be checking this blog in the next few days. On the day that I review the Circus play set, I'll also give you a chance to win one for yourself!

Alright, thats it for now... I'll write more soon!

P.S. If you want to learn more about Plan Toys, you can visit their Facebook Page!

Our First Review: Hide & Seek Safari® - Tiger - DELUXE edition!

For a while now I've been wanting to start doing some reviews on this blog. I thought it would be fun for the kids, and fun for me as well! I sent out a notice to a bunch of toy companies, inviting them to check out my blog. One of the first to respond was R&R Games. They sent us a package of games to check out!
I've decided to dole out the games one by one, so the kids don't get overwhelmed or start feeling like playing games is work. (Because playing should be fun, obviously!) You can expect to see more game reviews in the coming week.

When the package came, I knew right away which one I was going to show the kids first: Hide & Seek Safari® - Tiger - DELUXE edition! This is a game that includes a toy tiger and two wands with sensors in them. One person hides the tiger, and the others use the wands to help them find it. The closer a person gets to the hidden tiger, the more lights on the wand light up green. When you're standing very close and pointing your wand right in the direction of where the tiger is hidden, your wand will start to beep! I knew this active and novel game was right up Little Bear's and Rafael's alley!

The first problem I had with this toy was that I could not, for the life of me, get the batteries installed. The battery compartments have to be unscrewed, which should be easy, but for some reason it was insanely difficult! I got the tiger's battery compartment open eventually. I had to wait until Sarah got home from school, and ask her to help me try to open the battery compartments on the wands. She couldn't do it either! Finally I just took a butter knife, pried the compartments open, inserted the batteries, and used shipping tape to tape them shut. I don't know if I'm just a numbskull, or what, but the battery-installation process was extremely frustrating!

It was all worthwhile, though, once Sarah and I showed the game to the kids. It was very easy to teach them how to work the wands and how to play! We made the kids stay in the playroom with the door shut, while we hid the tiger. Then we opened the door to release them, and they raced to find it! I captured this video of them playing.

My Montage 10/8/09

(Note to self: Do not hide tiger in hanging plant!)

Little Bear and Rafael love this game, and they've been playing it every day after school! They like it best when Sarah or I hide the tiger for them, instead of them taking turns hiding it for each other. They don't really keep score or anything... for them its just one frantic race around the house after another. Both of them really need to be active and stay stimulated as much as possible, so this game really works for them.

I thought of all sorts of other ways of playing, too, to make the game more challenging. You could keep score, giving each player a point whenever he is the first one to find the tiger. Two people could play against each other by taking turns hiding the tiger, and by timing how long it takes for the other person to find it and trying to beat the other person's time. You could buy extra wands so that multiple people could race against each other to find it... if everyone's wands were lighting up and beeping, it would be a real foot race! You could even buy extra animals for large groups of people. I imagined it being a great activity for a youth group... the adults could hide several animals around an entire church or school building, and kids could break into partners or small groups and compete to find all of the animals. It would even make a great ice-breaker game for adults at a seminar or business meeting or something!

This game is perfect for school-aged kids. But once Little Bear and Rafael had called it quits today after about an hour of playing, Pufferfish jumped at the opportunity to try it out for herself! For her, I kept the game much more simple. I stayed in one small area of the house, and put the tiger in pretty much plain sight each time. I also had to give her a lot of guidance, by saying things like, "Oh, look, your stick is lighting up! It must mean the tiger is somewhere over this way!" (Otherwise she would just wildly swing the wand around without even looking at it!) But she loved playing, and was overjoyed whenever she found the tiger!

Pufferfish enjoyed hiding the tiger for me, too... but she wasn't the best hider! She tended to just set it in the middle of the room, and when I went to look for it, she'd race ahead of me and point it out. "I found it! It's right there!" she'd shout. Then, once, when it was my turn to hide the tiger, I put it on top of the toilet. Pufferfish thought that was so funny that, afterwards, she kept hiding the tiger in that same spot every time it was her turn! I had to prompt her, "Hide it in the living room this time, okay?"

THE FINAL REVIEW

Positive Aspects: It is an active game that is great for kids who have trouble sitting still for a traditional game. It is easy to adapt the game and the rules for different age groups and group sizes. There are only three pieces in the deluxe set, making it very easy to clean up! It is very novel... I have never heard of a similar game, and the kids really loved using the wands. It can be played indoors or out, in one room or throughout an entire building. It is easy to bring from place to place, since it's only a few pieces! You don't have to be able to read or have any other skills to play the game. In fact, technically, since the wands use both lights and beeps to show you when you're close to the tiger, this game can even be played by people who have trouble seeing or hearing!

Negative Aspects: The only negative thing I could find about this game was the trouble I had putting the batteries in. Another negative aspect might be that the Deluxe Set comes with only two wands, and the regular set comes with one wand, which would make it hard for larger families to play together unless they either broke into teams or bought more wands.

The kid who likes it the most: Rafael! He starts asking if we can play it, as soon as I pick him up from school!

We rate it: A+!
 

Kid's Product Review: Wikki Stix!

UPDATE: I'm putting this project up on the Saturday Showcase over at Ramblings Of A Crazy Woman. If you and your kids made anything fun this week, why don't you put yours up, too?

I'm still partying with the Ultimate Blog Party, and I've already made some new friends there! One of them tagged me for a brand new meme that involves reviewing a children's product! (I also tagged a few more people, so be sure you scroll down!)

I like to do theme weeks with the kids. This week we we were learning about shapes. This theme was mostly for Pufferfish's benefit, because Little Bear is a very bright kindergartener who has known her shapes for years! But I wanted to look for some shape-related activities that Little Bear would be able to enjoy too. So, when I was browsing through a teacher's supply store, I found this Wikki Stix Basic Shapes kit. I brought it home for the girls, who really enjoyed them!

You may have seen commercials for a similar product called Bendaroos, which are colorful, waxy sticks that can be bent, twisted, shaped, and stuck on things. Wikki Stix are the same idea, but I've heard that Wikki Stix ar actually a better product. They are colorful, flexible sticks that can be used for endless art projects!

The Basic Shapes kit came with some dot-to-dot boards where kids could use the Wikki Stix to follow the numbers and create specific pictures. But Little Bear preferred to come up with her own creations!

Here is a textured picture she created by putting Wikki Stix on paper. (You don't need any glue or anything... you just push the stix onto the paper, and they stay... even when you hang the paper up on the wall!)

And here is Little Bear holding a 3-D work of art she created for her little sister!

Meanwhile, Pufferfish liked playing with the stix, although she wasn't quite sure what to do with them. I used the time to form some simple shapes of my own (circles, hearts, squares and triangles) so I could quiz Pufferfish on them! I loved playing around with the Wikki Stiix too... they were rather addicting!

Little Bear used up most of the Wikki Stix and has already asked me to buy more... and I'm sure tht I will! I definitely think this is a great product for creative kids of all ages!

 

Now its your turn! What children's products do you love?

1. Mom2Amara

2. Gabi's World

3. Mommy, Just One More Minute!

4. Two Times The Fun

5. My Little Corner Of Life

Product Review: Smooth Away!

You may or may not know this, but I'm Italian. And here's an embarrassing secret... Italian girls are hairy! Actually, we may or may not be that much harrier than the next person, but our dark and coarse hair makes it easier to see. If you knew any Italian girls in junior high and high school, they were probably the ones who got made fun of for their hairy legs because their mothers wouldn't let them shave yet. (The blond girls, on the other hand, didn't even have to worry about shaving yet because their light hair didn't show up on their skin!) Italian girls are always in search of easy ways to remove their unwanted hair!
Anyway, I came across this product called Smooth Away. Its a lot different from any other hair removal system I have ever come across. You get a pad that is covered with little crystals. You take the pad and  rub it in circles on your skin... three times clockwise and three times counterclockwise for each area where you want to remove hair. Thats all there is to it! There are no creams, no waxes, nothing.
When I first read the description of this product, I was afraid that the pad would feel like sandpaper on my skin! After all, I have tried a few other products that claimed to "buff away" hair, and ended up with rashes and scrapes on my skin! But the Smooth Away pad is actually smooth. There is no pain involved!
Now, does it work?
When I first tried it, I noticed that it did a good job at removing hair that was already pretty fine. In places where I had coarser hair, it didn't work so well.
However, the kit also came with a tube of lotion that is supposed to not only moisturize the skin, but also cause new hair to grow back finer and lighter. Its a good idea to use this on areas where you've used the Smooth Away pad, because the Smooth Away pad also exfoliates your skin and leaves it sort of ashy. I also used it on areas where I had coarser hair, after removing that hair by shaving it as usual. After about a week of using the lotion, my coarser hair really did get lighter and finer, and I was able to remove it with a Smooth Away pad!
I would definitely recommend using the Smooth Away lotion whenever you remove hair, even if you shave it or wax it or use other methods of hair removal. The lotion definitely seems to work. As for the Smooth Away pads, they work also... although not as quickly as a simple shave in the shower works for me. But I'm going to keep the pads around, because there are some instances when they would certainly come in handy. For instance, since you don't need water or anything else to use them, you can "smooth" your legs anywhere! I think that makes them ideal for traveling, or for any other times when you might not get a chance to do your usual hair removal routine.
Has anyone else ever used this product? If so, what did you think?

Getting Into The Routine

The kind people at Connecting Moms sent me KC The Fox's Daily Routine Kit to try out with Little Bear. We've been pretty crazy-busy lately, so I just got the chance to put it together the other day... but it was a real hit with Little Bear! The kit includes a sticky-backed poster that can be hung up on any flat surface in your house, and lots of customizable pictures to place on it. Each picture shows KC The Fox doing something, such as going to school, reading a book, eating a meal, taking a bath, etc. With the wet-erase marker that is included, you can write down the times of the day that your child will do each thing, and also draw in the hands on the clock. Then, you just stick them onto the poster, in order! They can be removed and reused, so if your routine changes even for a day, you can switch it around.
I hung the poster on Little Bear's door, and she loved it! She likes checking her schedule to see what she should be doing next. I've noticed that most little kids love having some sort of picture schedule to look at, and a routine to follow. It makes them feel more in control of their day, because they always know whats going to come next. To a kid, this is much better than just waiting around for an adult to suddenly announce that its time to eat, time to take a bath, time to clean up, etc.
I just hope my new Daily Routine Kit is going to last, in our house! I wanted to hang it at Little Bear's eye level, so that she could easily check it and also move around the pictures if need be. But Pufferfish can also reach it, and she's been showing a lot of interest in peeling off those pictures!
At any rate, Little Bear is really happy with the kit. She thinks KC The Fox is so cute!
If you want to sign up to try out new products like this one, join me at Connecting Moms by clicking "Yes" on the picture below!

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Halloween Costumes in December?

All this talk about angels reminded me of how many years I've tried to dress up as an angel for Halloween. When I first started dressing as an angel, as a teenager, I thought to myself, "Angels can look like regular people!" So I'd dress in jeans and a T-shirt, and carry a sign that said, "Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for many have entertained angels unaware"
In later years, I at least tried to come up with wings and a halo. I've always preferred the wings that look like they have real feathers, not the ones that are made of white nylon and fake fur! Once I even wore a white T-shirt and white skirt, for a costume contest. (I came in last!)
So, who knows? Maybe my first angel costume (which basically consisted of nothing) was the best angel costume ever. One of my favorite shows is Touched By An Angel, and those angels never even have wings and haloes! Not even when they turn all glowy and bright at the end!
Oh well. Maybe next year I'll splurge and buy an angel costume I've been looking around online, and I've seen some really nice ones!
But Halloween is still pretty far away. Easter is closer. Maybe I should be looking at bunny costumes instead!
LOL... Sorry! I'm just in a kind of random mood! ;)

Review: Create Your Own Pop-Up Book!

A while ago, for participating in a survey on BlogHer, the people at Creativity For Kids sent me this Create Your Own Pop Up Book Kit. I've been working with Little Bear on making some of her own books this week, so yesterday we tried out the Pop Up Book Kit!

The kit comes with two blank hardcover books (one big and one small), some markers, two sheets of stickers, the paper pieces necessary to make things "pop up" in your book, and the instructions on how to do it. The directions said that all of the pop-up pieces were self-adhesive, so no glue or scissors would be necessary unless you wanted to make additional pieces on your own. However, I found that the adhesive stuff was all dried up, and wouldn't stick at all, so I did end up using my own glue. Other than that, the project was a total success!

Little Bear started working on it while Pufferfish was still sleeping. With just a little bit of guidance from me, Little Bear was able to work independently on her book and make all of the pop-up things herself. Meanwhile, I worked on the smaller book, inserting my own pop-ups. Later, when Pufferfish woke up, I helped her choose and stick on stickers on all of the different pages, and let her color on the pages with the markers. So, although the kit is perfect for kids over the age of five, it can be adapted for younger kids too. Pufferfish is only seventeen months old, and she definitely enjoyed it and got something from it!

Here are some pictures of the girls and their masterpieces.

Little Bear's favorite part was the "secret message' piece, which was a small envelope that could be glued onto a page. She put a little card, on which she wrote  "I <3 Mom", inside the envelope.

Pufferfish's book turned into sort of a word book. She picked the stickers she liked, and now when she pages through the book she can name most of the pictures!

I really love this type of product that helps kids to be creative and have fun. I heard that the company is going to have a product review panel starting in 2009, so I'm hoping I'll have the chance to review more of their products soon!

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